Our family Christmas up north was short but sweet. We embarked on our 5 hour car ride early last Saturday. My sister and I bunked with the dogs in the backseat. They were dressed up in their Christmas sweaters and were well behaved for most of the ride up. Buzz loved staring out the window while Rusty just snuggled up. On our first night at my grandparent's house we helped my grandpa set up a new TV and then all the women drank wine and socialized in the kitchen while the men watched football.

The next morning (Christmas Eve) we had a girl's day and baked cookies for four hours. FOUR! There were so many cookies by the time we were done, and those were only the sugar. My aunt had already done a lot of baking before we got there, so we were surrounded by sweets! After cooking, we made lunch and watched the new Beauty and the Beast. The men returned in the late afternoon and we all made our favorite horderves and ate buffet style.

I was in charge of cutting out the sugar cookies, so we had a couple nontraditional shapes in our batches! I added a bunch of chickens and a couple squirrels to the lot. The gingerbread man below was named Fred, and he had a really rough day. He didn't pick up off the cutting board well, which almost tore off his leg. His head was also a little wobbly. I pinched him back together so he could go into the oven, but when being transferred from the cooling rack to the frosting station, his head fell off and was eaten by a dog! Poor Fred...

Our finished sugar cookies. We had so much fun frosting all these! :)

On Christmas morning, we unwrapped gifts at my grandparents house and then prepared even more horderves for when the rest of our family came into town. We had a full house between all the people and their dogs. I love that our family events include bringing all the dogs along. This weekend we had nine dogs total! They were all so sweet, especially my cousin's new dog Murphy, the star of the photos below.

There's a sneak peak into my family Christmas. I am thankful everyone was able to come together and that the weather held off until this week so everyone could travel safely.